State: Commission candidate Weiss sold tobacco without license

Commission candidate Gregg Weiss sold cigars online in 2007 and 2008 without being licensed by the Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation, according to FDBR spokeswoman Sandi Poreda.

“We checked our system and we don’t have any record of any license at least going back as far as 2002 for Mr. Weiss,” Poreda said Friday. “Our department does require a license to sell cigars or tobacco for retail purposes online or in store.”

Weiss insists that he was following orders he was given, saying Friday that he had been told by the West Palm Beach branch of the Division of Alcohol Beverages and Tobacco at the time that he didn’t need a license.

“In 2005 when we contacted the Florida ABT they advised us that we did not require a license for an online only business,” Weiss said. “We called them.”

Officials from the ABT did not have an immediate response on Friday, saying they would look into it.

Commissioner Shanon Materio, Weiss’ opponent, criticized Weiss.

“If you’re not willing to do the homework before you’re selling a controlled substance it says a lot about what you’re not going to be doing when you’re sitting on the commission,’ Materio said Friday. “It’s a lot of hard work.”

On Tuesday, Weiss acknowledged not paying $400 for city and county occupational licenses for his cigar business, JupiterCigars.com in 2007 and 2008. He said he didn’t know it was required at the time, and he said he paid the $400 last month after he learned about the back taxes from a reporter.

While state tax filings with the Department of Revenue are not public record, on Friday Weiss provided The Palm Beach Post with a 2008 receipt from the state showing he paid $2.95 in sales tax for Dec. 2007. Weiss paid the state that month a total of $52.97 — $2.95 in sales tax, $0.02 in interest and a $50 late penalty for mailing the sales tax to the state one day past the due date.

Weiss said the $2.95 in taxes would represent about one box of cigars. According to Weiss’ web site at the time, he had 400 clients annually. Weiss said Friday that online businesses are not required to pay sales tax on out-of-state sales and that most of his clients were from out-of-state.

“(The customers) are responsible for paying and reporting taxes for out of state,” Weiss said.

Florida does not require cigar sellers to pay a tobacco tax. Tom Hogue, spokesman for the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau said Friday that for a tobacco tax on a federal level “the tax payer is the manufacturer or the importer.” Weiss was the reseller.

Weiss released a statement Friday saying, “I have 30 years of business experience and at the time followed what I was lead to believe was the proper procedures. Online business were not well defined in 2005 when we began our research. Once the error was brought to my attention I took responsibility and paid the required fees. I collected sales tax for all sales made to Florida residents and submitted them quarterly as required. My opponent has done everything possible to dig up dirt on me having to go back 7-years to get into the minutiae to run a smear campaign. Voters now have the chance to see who the real Shanon Materio is and to what lengths she will go.”